HISD won't shut 3 schools this summer

District says it's not going to close campuses at the last minute while waiting on state

Published 5:30 am, Saturday, May 26, 2007

The state's inability to quickly determine whether three Houston ISD schools met minimum academic standards this year has left the district unable to carry out a threat to close them.

Texas lawmakers pushed last year for harsher penalties against consistently failing schools, but Houston's dilemma, revealed Friday, shows the state could have a tough time holding bad schools more accountable.

Houston ISD Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra said he could no longer recommend closing Kashmere High, Sam Houston High and McReynolds Middle School this summer because he doesn't know for sure whether the state will rate them academically acceptable. The state won't officially release school ratings until Aug. 1 — four weeks before classes begin.

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"It would be irresponsible and wrong to close any of these schools at the very last minute, this summer, should any of them be rated unacceptable," Saavedra told teachers and staff gathered in Kashmere's library Friday. He said he plans to ask the school board to rescind its previous vote calling for the schools to be shut down if they failed again.

All three campuses made gains this school year, though it's not clear whether they improved enough.

Saavedra said State Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley told him last August that the district could get ratings for the three schools by mid-June. Neeley's office says there was never a guarantee.

The school ratings are based primarily on student test scores. A certain percentage of students have to pass standardized exams in four subjects, or the schools have to show enough improvement from the prior year.

Finalizing the ratings can get complicated, though, because not all students' scores count, and data must be checked for flaws, Ratcliffe said.

This delay could lead to problems as more schools land on the state's unacceptable list year after year. A new state law, passed last year, requires the commissioner of education to close a school or place it under nonprofit management if it is deemed unacceptable for four consecutive years.

But state law also gives the TEA until Aug. 1 to release the ratings, and districts have a chance to appeal after that. Those aren't finished until October, Ratcliffe said, and if a district wants to appeal any sanctions, that process could drag into the next school year.

"While the law says close a school or move to alternative management after years of unacceptable ratings, it's physically almost impossible to make that happen on that schedule — unless the district takes some actions itself," Ratcliffe said.

Sandy Kress, an Austin attorney who consulted on the school accountability legislation, said he thought lawmakers intended for the commissioner to anticipate which schools could face closure a year ahead of time.

"The commissioner's contingency planning was supposed to be done a year in advance so you don't get to a place where you're waiting for data in June or July ... and for a restructuring to begin a month later," Kress said. "I think that would be very difficult to do."

The leaders of the Senate and House education committees could not be reached for comment Friday.

Although the state doesn't officially release ratings until August, individual districts — especially a big one such as Houston with a $1.5 billion budget and its own research department — should be able to predict its ratings already, according to state officials and data specialists.

Michael Strozeski, an assistant superintendent in a suburban Dallas district, created a computer program that has generated accurate ratings for about 100 Texas districts. But even without the software, a large district should have the staff and data they need to calculate middle and high school ratings by mid-May, he said.

"They can run it today," Strozeski said. "They probably have people with the resources to make a good prediction."

Still, he said, he understands Houston's reluctance to make a call before the state's official announcement.

Several parents, students and community members praised Saavedra's recommendation to keep the schools open, regardless of ratings.

"I am just extremely happy with the announcement," said Carolyn Miller, a 1974 Kashmere graduate who heads the school's parent-teacher association. "The staff, the students and the community have pulled together."

Frank Morales, the treasurer of Sam Houston's parent group, said he supports keeping the school open, but he wants the teaching to improve. "I think that's great, that's wonderful, but there's still a lot more to be done," he said.